First pre-season trial - Dragons Vs Knights - 7:30pm Saturday 7th February - Netstrata Jubliee Stadium Sydney

On the flipside, just before he got injured the Knights basically gave up on Sharpe playing 5/8 in favour of getting him in fullback like positions on the right. In the trial all his best work was in those fullback like positions. That leaves me thinking he's a fullback, but we already have one.
 
slotmachine said:
On the flipside, just before he got injured the Knights basically gave up on Sharpe playing 5/8 in favour of getting him in fullback like positions on the right. In the trial all his best work was in those fullback like positions. That leaves me thinking he's a fullback, but we already have one.
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That was under Aob. Should we have kept Aob?
 
I'm not sure we are giving Sharpe enough credit for the McCarthy try. For starters, I'm not sure Jones is that frantic to get the offload away if it wasn't the blonde mullet he was looking at. Sharpe made it look pretty easy to skip through and find an unmarked McCarthy. I don't think it was that easy. I reckon only a handful of players put it on a platter like that.

Loved Dylbags comments after the game that Sharpe had been making them all looking silly over the preseason.
 
Interested in the thoughts of Graham over Arthur? Lots of talk here how great Arthur was, yet I saw some defence issues still with him and keeping in mind we are NOT playing against real time FG yet. I’d have Graham still - seemed composed and reliable in defence. We need both from a hooker. This 6 man bench may play as a tactical response depending how a game flows?
 
Owey said:
It was an "if" he has that elite footy iq. Does he? Thats a fair question. Facts of the situation as I see it are:
* Trent Robinson was happy for him to walk
* Pos saw him as an answer to our hooking situation
* It seemed he was going to the cowboys to play half
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IMO I Think Trent was happy to let him go only because they had DCE coming. Roosters have been underperforming for a few seasons and Trent needs another premiership - the pressure has to be increasing on his job.

Sandon probably thinks he is a half and wants to be a half. Probably not really prepared to play second fiddle again and wants to back himself. My Gut feeling is Trent had not many options but to let one of Savala or Smith go. Particularly with Toby Rodwell they have coming through who is touted to be a gun.
 
Nightsondee said:
Interested in the thoughts of Graham over Arthur? Lots of talk here how great Arthur was, yet I saw some defence issues still with him and keeping in mind we are NOT playing against real time FG yet. I’d have Graham still - seemed composed and reliable in defence. We need both from a hooker. This 6 man bench may play as a tactical response depending how a game flows?
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A 9 controls tempo and area. I found forwards came onto the ball better with Arthur. That then leads to finding a front as your into the defensive line faster and getting a quicker PTB. Graham's passes hit the mark a little slow or the pass isn't as crisp but I mean all that can be worked on. I find Matty has better vision whereas Graham was listening to who wanted the ball rather then using his own vision.
It's a bit of a tough one, they both probably only need to be playing 20-30 a game so its going to be interesting who Justin goes with.
 
danknights said:
A 9 controls tempo and area. I found forwards came onto the ball better with Arthur. That then leads to finding a front as your into the defensive line faster and getting a quicker PTB. Graham's passes hit the mark a little slow or the pass isn't as crisp but I mean all that can be worked on. I find Matty has better vision whereas Graham was listening to who wanted the ball rather then using his own vision.
It's a bit of a tough one, they both probably only need to be playing 20-30 a game so its going to be interesting who Justin goes with.
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I think we absolutely need some creative out of dummy half also, Crossy isn't going to be that player so someone to compliment that long term would be advantageous imo.
 
Brad tighe said:
I can see Schiller and gamble being moved on mid season some dominos will fall
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I agree there will some domino’s to fall mid season. Just nit sure one will be Gamble. We apparently tried to offload him in the offseason, but no one was interested.

In my opinion, Gamble is definitely gone at the end of the season though
 
Beatell said:
I think we absolutely need some creative out of dummy half also, Crossy isn't going to be that player so someone to compliment that long term would be advantageous imo.
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I agree and have some creative hookers coming though and I’ve seen Arthur and I think Davies in cup really straighten things up but when you have a hooker who’s weaker in defence it can be a liability too.
Nice to have some options there though and I’m looking forward to seeing them use this 6 man bench as a tactic
 
Owey said:
I'm not sure we are giving Sharpe enough credit for the McCarthy try. For starters, I'm not sure Jones is that frantic to get the offload away if it wasn't the blonde mullet he was looking at. Sharpe made it look pretty easy to skip through and find an unmarked McCarthy. I don't think it was that easy. I reckon only a handful of players put it on a platter like that.

Loved Dylbags comments after the game that Sharpe had been making them all looking silly over the preseason.
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Lovely play and another illustration of why I hope to see Fletcher in our fullback jersey for over 200 games.
 
Nightsondee said:
Interested in the thoughts of Graham over Arthur? Lots of talk here how great Arthur was, yet I saw some defence issues still with him and keeping in mind we are NOT playing against real time FG yet. I’d have Graham still - seemed composed and reliable in defence. We need both from a hooker. This 6 man bench may play as a tactical response depending how a game flows?
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Happy with either of them on the bench but I would probably lean towards putting Arthur on the bench from what I saw. Want to see the second trial before I say for sure.

1. Ponga
2/3. Sharpe
6. Brown
7. Smith
9. Crossland
14. Arthur

Is where I'm leaning.

Poor old Gamblor looks a bit cooked physically.
 
The positive in all this is we have depth in key positions. I can really start to see the fruits of POS signings. Ponga said in a very recent interview he feels the club is in the best position since his playing time at the knights.
 
@Owey I don't reckon Sandon is an elite visionary or anything like that. I just think he is up to par, maybe above average for an NRL halfback. Ponga is second to Sandon with Brown a distant 3rd, for mine. And it falls precipitously from there.

Athletically, however, Sandon is among the top halfbacks for speed, agility, acceleration etc. He is probably middle of the road technically. Whereas Brown, he is elite technically, better than Ponga in many respects, particularly the basics in passing and kicking.

But point being, you can't just have a team full of Ryan Papenhyuzens with a good game plan and a good coach. Someone needs to be steering the ship, predominantly, and if the role is shared then it is best shared among as few players as possible otherwise you can get a conflict in short-term decision making which is usually counter productive.

Having one dude who seems to always know which side of the ruck the ball needs to go, to which players, why and the tempo at which it must be done is always best for a footy team. Even if that dude isnt always calling for the ball.
 
Lets say hypothetically, a team had two Sandon Smith's in the halves. In that case, yea, the 6 and 7 jersey could be interchangeable and the team could run via a game management tactic that helped decide who is the dominant playmaker / who has the dominant call. But that's now a technical matter fraught with its own downsides.

And you couldn't replace two Smiths with two Browns and expect the team to be as drilled and organised as if it were run by two Sandons.

Its a profile issue we're discussing here. And I don't beleive either of Brown or Sharpe have the wherewithal to lead a team around the park to an NRL standard, let alone the standard required to win a comp.
 
Les Misérables said:
Lets say hypothetically, a team had two Sandon Smith's in the halves. In that case, yea, the 6 and 7 jersey could be interchangeable and the team could run via a game management tactic that helped decide who is the dominant playmaker / who has the dominant call. But that's now a technical matter fraught with its own downsides.

And you couldn't replace two Smiths with two Browns and expect the team to be as drilled and organised as if it were run by two Sandons.

Its a profile issue we're discussing here. And I don't beleive either of Brown or Sharpe have the wherewithal to lead a team around the park to an NRL standard, let alone the standard required to win a comp.
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I think Brown has the ability to do it but it plays away from his strengths and shouldn’t be considered.

Brown at 6 and Smith at 7 is the best option for our attacking structure no doubt.

We could play Sharpe at 14 but I’d argue he’s more wasted not playing 80 minutes each week than he would be on the wing where he’s excelled and helped us win games previously.

It’s not a bad headache to have though and sure as hell beats having to choose who sucks the least between Cogger, Jake Arthur and a crippled Hastings.
 
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Les Misérables said:
@Owey I don't reckon Sandon is an elite visionary or anything like that. I just think he is up to par, maybe above average for an NRL halfback. Ponga is second to Sandon with Brown a distant 3rd, for mine. And it falls precipitously from there.

Athletically, however, Sandon is among the top halfbacks for speed, agility, acceleration etc. He is probably middle of the road technically. Whereas Brown, he is elite technically, better than Ponga in many respects, particularly the basics in passing and kicking.

But point being, you can't just have a team full of Ryan Papenhyuzens with a good game plan and a good coach. Someone needs to be steering the ship, predominantly, and if the role is shared then it is best shared among as few players as possible otherwise you can get a conflict in short-term decision making which is usually counter productive.

Having one dude who seems to always know which side of the ruck the ball needs to go, to which players, why and the tempo at which it must be done is always best for a footy team. Even if that dude isnt always calling for the ball.
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“Vision” is such a hard thing to quantify. You look at a Dylan Brown highlight reel and he looks like a rugby league savant. The issue with him has more been that he can drift in and out of games a bit (though I think people overstate this a bit because he has “arrogant guy” body language and it turns people off).

When he goes out there with the mindset of - be physical, run, compete - he looks like the best 6 going and the vision seems to miraculously appear again. We saw that in the Pac Champs.

Where I think Sandon is the best option we have is more in the lead up to opportunities being created rather than in the vision to capitalise. I feel like I saw it again in the trial, get him around the ball linking play and our forwards will get quicker play the balls and then things will happen off the back of that.
 
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